{"id":80,"date":"2009-10-09T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/mickey-rourke-on-the-priest-who-saved-his-life.html"},"modified":"2009-10-09T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T01:00:00","slug":"mickey-rourke-on-the-priest-who-saved-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/mickey-rourke-on-the-priest-who-saved-his-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Mickey Rourke on the priest who saved his life"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Year for Priests, here’s a story<\/a> that reminds us the impact a priest can have on just one life:<\/p>\n

Mickey Rourke has revealed that he was on the verge of suicide before he turned to the Catholic Church for help.<\/p>\n

“The Wrestler” star, who battled alcohol and drug addiction for several years, claims in PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk’s new book “One Can Make a Difference: How Simple Actions Can Change the World” that a priest helped save his life.<\/p>\n

He explained: “One day I looked in the mirror and I saw myself the way others saw me. I saw the armour and I scared the f**k out of myself.<\/p>\n

“I did see a priest for a while, a great one who stopped me from blowing my brains out. We’d go in the basement, he’d pour me a glass of wine, we’d smoke cigarettes, and then we’d pray. But I needed a shrink too, so I forced myself to go.<\/p>\n

“I had to learn not to let people push my buttons, find out what was triggering all this rage, and stop throwing things away. I’ve barely missed a therapy session in over a decade, and that takes willpower.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are more details at the link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Year for Priests, here’s a story that reminds us the impact a priest can have on just one life: Mickey Rourke has revealed that he was on the verge of suicide before he turned to the Catholic Church for help. “The Wrestler” star, who battled alcohol and drug addiction for several years, claims…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nMickey Rourke on the priest who saved his life - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/mickey-rourke-on-the-priest-who-saved-his-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mickey Rourke on the priest who saved his life - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}